All I needed to do here was set the theme and initiate the writing and the rest just followed. My pen, my brain, my heart, my creation that was already there, waiting to be written...

Take it as fiction, if you're so inclined, but I think that this is something more... Much more...

Dead Again...

by Karl Stuart Kline

Oh, God!

Here we go again!

The transmigration of souls isn't the well managed occurrence that most people imagine it to be...

Much like gravity and the speed of light, Murphy's Law is a Universal Constant and I'm here to blow the whistle on the cosmic scope of the mismanagement that occurs between death and rebirth.

First of all , the sheer size of the task lends itself to errors of unimaginable magnitude! As a matter of fact, I'm an example of one kind of error that just isn't supposed to happen in that I've managed to retain some memories of my time spent between corporeal lives as well as memories of my former lifetimes. The ancient Greeks knew what they were talking about when they described the river Lethe, whose waters of forgetfulness washed the soul clean of old memories, taking away the sins of the past and allowing the soul to emerge again in untarnished innocence.

That's not to say that former lives don't have an impact upon the ultimate destination of the individual soul, because even when the memories are gone, the proclivities remain from one lifetime to the next. Starry eyed optimists and visionaries still keep their optimistic, forward thinking tendencies. Even though they may have to relearn science and philosophy that they themselves were instrumental in pioneering, they still tend to come to the forefront of original thought for each new generation. Of course the other side of the coin is tarnished in that there are those souls that retain their propensity for doing harm to others. Either way, they are known by their deeds and neither one is completely free of the influence of the other. That's the Yin and Yang in the cycle of death and rebirth where even the darkest souls have the seed of greatness and possible redemption within them. An unfortunate necessity of universal balance, though, is that those souls that shine brightest, illuminating the lives of all those around them, still retain their own seed of darkness and must overcome subtle inner demons each time they re-emerge into the world that they have helped to form. Often those inner demons torment them throughout their lives and they never know from where they came. They just know that they are there, distracting them from the good works that they wish to accomplish. In extreme cases they can even dominate their lives, taking over and altering or preventing what might have been.

Fortunately, even when darkness seems to have taken over the world, somewhere there is a spark shining brightly that can in turn lead to a glorious future in which that darkness is reduced to a pessimistic undercurrent in society, rearing its' grotesque head from time to time in the evil deeds that it inspires. The Universe is an ongoing struggle between the forces of Darkness and those of Light. Either one may hold sway at any given time, but neither is ever capable of extinguishing the other.

The world is full of religions - human constructs - that try to explain or even take credit for these basic facts of life and death. Then there are others, self styled prophets who simply wish to build personality cults whose ultimate goal is their own aggrandizement. (I wonder if Rasputin might have been reborn as Charles Manson...) It's a sad thing to note that often the true reason for their founding of a new church is tax evasion. I once saw statistics that showed that there were approximately twenty new religions registered in the United States every year!

An interesting thing about reincarnation is that even for religious individuals it is not a given that they will be reborn to their own faith. It doesn't even matter if they are zealots for their faith, leading others to be converted by their missionary work or becoming martyrs for their cause. Reborn as a blank slate, you are the clay that is modeled by your parents and their society as you are made in their image. It's the same sort of logic that brings theologians to declare that they are created in God's image, when in reality they create their gods in their image, never realizing how ludicrous it might be for a god to take the form of a hairless ape. Again, though, proclivities are retained from one lifetime to the next and a zealot for one religion in one lifetime is likely to be a zealot for another religion in the next. As a matter of fact, given their propensity for martyrdom, they tend to be recycled rather quickly!

I think that the individuals who we sometimes refer to as having "Old Souls" are those who have lived many long and sagacious lives as opposed to those who die young and foolishly, going through many lives without ever knowing wisdom. Perhaps an example would be the Dalai Lama, who is supposedly Buddha reborn and is revered from his childhood when he is searched out by Tibetan Monks.

Of course an interesting side to all this is the question of predestination versus free will. What I see is that free will is a daily occurrence in all aspects of our lives and billions of people, making individual decisions from moment to moment is what keeps our lives chaotic and, to a certain degree, unpredictable. The reason that I qualify that statement is the fact, as I mentioned earlier, that our proclivities follow us from one lifetime to the next and that our choices are predictable in that we will be true to our natures. An example of this would be found when 'crimes of opportunity' occur. I myself have had occasions where I could have engaged in rape, robbery, murder and mayhem with virtual impunity, going from one crime to another for decades, perhaps being eventually apprehended as the Green River Killer was or leaving my true identity as a mystery to be pondered for generations like Jack the Ripper.

But I didn't.

Many times I have turned away from a path that would have led to quick and easy gratification of some of my baser instincts...

They are there... Remember the seed of darkness on the light side of Yin and Yang? It's as true for individuals as it is for civilizations.

Temptation refused and gratification deferred... If I was a different person, it would be a different story, but then abstinence is a choice you make that is made easier by knowing and considering the alternatives. Knowledge is power here also. If you are ignorant and weak, then you place yourself at the mercy of others who will use you as a tool to execute their will, sacrificing your free will, your freedom and sometimes even your life.

Of course, your life is forfeit when someone convinces you to be a suicide bomber, but there are other ways to be self destructive as well. Young people have their ignorance taken advantage of when they are duped by "Talent Agents" and "Fiances" who trick them into prostitution and slavery, transporting them to where they are unfamiliar with their rights and often where a language barrier further complicates matters, leaving them battered, abused, diseased and hooked on drugs. Most of all, they are afraid and alone, unable to cope with a situation where their masters are in total control. The Helsinki Syndrome comes to mind... Powerless people that are held against their will for long periods of time who try to explain and justify their condition without denigrating their captors, becoming slaves mentally as well as physically.

Premonition is something that I have experienced as well, but it is an extremely rare event that usually is not recognized for what it is until it's too late to alter the outcome. It has no direct connection to the transmigration of souls, since that is a linear progression along the time line and premonition, by definition, is a non-linear jump of cognition that realizes the outcome of future events. A blessing and a curse, it is a Gift and a Mystery that is a two edged sword, sometimes leaving people tormented by the knowledge that they might have been able to intervene. What they need to accept is that without some degree of predestination, there could be no premonition and, knowing that, they can accept what has happened, carrying on with their lives until it is time for the next.

Control what you can, accept what you cannot and proceed with the knowledge that every ending is only a new beginning. Opportunities mean nothing if you cannot approach them with an open mind and an open heart.

Karl Stuart Kline

Nov. 30, 2004

(I'm currently in the process of transcribing this document one keystroke at a time, so if you notice that it doesn't seem complete, that's because I'm not just pasting it in... I'm posting a couple of paragraphs at a time locking it in and checking the web to be sure that it's true to the original... When I'm finished, this paragraph will disappear... ) 8/2/05... I've finished the transcription, but I've decided to leave this paragraph so that later readers can appreciate the act as well as the words. If they've read my books, then they can also appreciate the context from which it comes...